Is perfection really unattainable?

From a very young age, we each begin accepting messages that reinforce we're anything but perfect.  Society bombards us with reasons to question our self-image, our comfort zone, and our overall self-view.  What are your early memories of not being good enough? 

You may reflect on school, athletics, creative endeavors, physical growth where you compared yourself to other people.  Maybe they seemed to receive more praise or encouragement.  Each person who seemed better than you reinforced your deficiencies.

You may have developed ways to measure yourself against levels and standards set by other people.  Why do you exert effort in an attempt to live as other people believe you should? How can you expect to live up to changing ideals over which you exert no control?

As you evolve inside yourself, you begin to grasp how standards of perfection set by other human beings could be ever-shifting, increasing, decreasing and hard to follow.  Its unrealistic to believe you can shapeshift at the same pace and evolve into what someone else wants.  What you can do is reframe your sense of happiness to measure perfection.

Obscure notions of perfection stem from other people. These ideas are hard to pin down.  From a spiritual point of view, being connected to forces beyond you remind you that you are a sentient being of perfection.  You are perfect as you are.  This means you need not exert effort to please others or take steps to evolve into something you're not. 

What if the love inside you is a sign of your innate perfection?  What if you need not struggle?  What if happiness is not a carrot at the end of a stick you must pursue?  If your understanding of perfection is based on temporary, changing, and external conditions, it may seem unattainable.  Yet, if you sense that perfection is a synonym for infinite love energy inside and around you, then you realize its static and accessible always. 

Curiously, you may evolve to think the concept of self-improvement is problematic.  If you sense this implies things are wrong with you that require fixing, then you begin to see how the fallacy is perpetuated in culture and your mind. You live the life you believe.  You dream about what you don't have or experience or, you dream about all the wonderful things you already are.  Some people fluctuate in-between.  Where do you stand now?

Follow the clues to rediscover yourself

Each of us go through a process to figure out who we really are.  Some people do not figure it out during this lifetime.  That doesn't have to include you.  Decide you will go the distance to tap into your soul.  Your choice of mentors makes it easier than you think!

1) Notice how your mentors change.  Through the process of researching and writing a manuscript, I have read hundreds of stories of people who have influenced my thoughts and behaviors at different life phases. Some people left a lasting impression in person. Others captured my attention with action and what I sensed to be their appealing qualities. Aspects that stand out encourage me to realize I can tap into my hidden self.

2) Discern why you label mentors.  I unconsciously put each of my mentors into categories, from nationality, to gender, profession or contribution to society, and based on my upbringing, morals and values. I intially felt this simply helped me to organize my ideas, then concluded a significant, underlying message. My feelings about different labels became a gauge. Recognizing why I judge empowers me to transcend destructive labels I had adopted myself. We may project and attract what we don't want or what we're not.

3) Identify traits of your mentors. How you judge others reveals how you secretly view yourself and the world. If you commend or admire other people in ways that reinforce what you lack, wish you had or could do, you may be highlighting weaknesses, self-doubt and things that distract you from your truth. Your mindset, priorities and principles are highlighted by certain traits and views of success.

4) Discern value in undesirable mentors.  Even people you find annoying offer you valuable wisdom about yourself.  You can see these irritants as teachers and a means for overcoming facits of ego.  This clouds your authentic self-view and blocks you from recognizing what is truly important to your innermost soul. 

5) Look beyond the obvious. Underneath it all, you don't desire to mimic or shapeshift into your inspirational mentors. You are actually creating an inventory of the skills related to your own transformation. Your mentors enable you to pinpoint not only the emotions you feel about what they do, but also your inner beliefs that caused those emotions. These clues reveal the path to reclaim your authentic self. 

How do you know if your assumptions are right?

When it comes to relationships, we make all our choices for conscious and unconscious reasons.  How would your life be different if you began to consciously recognize unhealthy behaviour patterns and change? Modifying your behaviour doesn't necessarily mean you get to the root of your conditioning.  How do you know if your assumptions uncover what you see or, only what you would like to see?  Do you really know yourself?

Take your current partner.  To acknowledge the truth of what is happening in your life within your relationships, you need to be willing to take responsibility for your half of making or watching it happen.  As you reflect on your conditions, you can, when ready, gradually grow to see where your beliefs and agreements create where you are. 

One man shared a story.  He felt that as his personal life took off in a good way, unforeseen obstacles appeared to repeatedly annoy him or push his goals out of reach.  For example, his business partner cheated him and their business folded.  Then, stress and financial strain mounted.  As finances grew healthier, he was wrongfully accused of an unrelated crime he didn't commit that complicated smoother sailing.  Then, even wedding plans seemed to him problematic as mysterious glitches appeared.

Always remind yourself apparent challenges are blessings.  They help us deal  with self-centeredness, self-importance and self-esteem issues. In order to benefit, a person has to be willing to address the underlying reasons for self-sabotage.  Your choice of how to react to other people determines whether you take their behavior personally.  As you come to realize you don't always have to prove you're right, your perspective changes. You take responsibility for yourself and certain things no longer matter.  You can grow.

What if you decided to release all your expectations about everything and everyone? This would require detaching from rigid points of view about why you think things should work in a certain way.   This process takes courage, discipline, self-control.  Are you ready?

What's the common thread?

What's the common thread in your most life-changing experiences? They are not about you.  They are not personal.  That may surprise you.  In fact, they could involve someone else and you could be just standing in.  You could even step back and live vicariously through someone else and get the message.  Do you begin to sense underlying vibrations?

Many people share stories, and stories have intrinsic meaning.  Stories may also inspire , motivate or discourage others.  Yet, stories mean the most to those who experience them.  They're the only ones who truly understand.  Their truth must be felt by them. 

The common thread isn't linked to fears evoked by stories, like shaky self-worth, esteem or whether others judge.  Emotions simply distract you. They want you to stay as you are, drain personal power and get wrapped up in fear-based beliefs. What prevents you from facing every challenge as it comes, with an open heart? The absence of love.

Let's say the common thread is human beings choose to experience and learn the meaning of love.  Each individual can evolve to sense there are no such thing as guarantees.  Thoughts and feelings enhance our process of personal growth or further blind us from what we deny or do not choose to experience.  You manipulate your own awareness. 

So, what about the common thread? Each moment you decide to gain new wisdom, build on what you think you know.  This will lead you to the next plateau.  Its self-perpetuating.

Why is control an illusion?

Whether or not you realize or accept it, you exert no control over what is happening outside yourself.  You have free will and exert control when it comes to your thoughts and feelings, but you don't control anything else.  You are only responsible for you.

Now, if you gaze into a kaleidoscope, you glimpse interacting shapes and colors.  This serves as a fabulous analogy.  Every moment, every human being is contributing to changing shapes and slants inside this kaleidoscope.  Life moves through us and with us. 

Imagine your life as a series of experiences.  You add pieces to your own section of the huge kaleidoscope.  It includes sections contributed by every other creature and living thing.  How could you control all those colors, feelings and experiences?  You don't. The assumption you can is the illusion you create out of a desire to control what you can't.

You are the only person who can discern and change your behaviour.  Do you ever sense your choices are selfish or self-centred?  Do you ever take steps to fight your own resistence?  Pay attention to your vibes.  Listen to your mind.  Choose to avoid conflict, arguments and negative energy.  They are unnecesary illusions.  Why not let them go?